


Pizza

by Houseplant



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Cooking, Culinary adventures, Food, Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-27 03:13:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14416446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Houseplant/pseuds/Houseplant
Summary: Gladio suggests putting cream cheese on pizza. The boys aren't having it.





	Pizza

Once you've had a five-star meal, it's hard to go back.

 

(Though if you asked Prompto, Ignis could boil salted water and it'd still be Michelin Star Worthy food, which was precisely why the blonde was not a food critic or food journalist.)

 

However, the issue of the day lay in the fact that there _wasn't_ an Ignis around to provide them lunch, as the otherwise unflappable man was needed to observe some fancy meeting or something somewhere in the Citadel. (Neither of the boys had been listening to the explanation; Noctis knew he'd get the notes later and be bored to tears by them them, and Prompto had the good sense to tune out the inner workings of royalty. Gladio, as the shield, was exempt from boring meeting duties, a fact which Noctis low-key resented the shield for.)

 

The originally planned Day-Without-Ignis had turned from bingeing video games all day, to the prince and the plebe somehow ending up at the Amicitias'. Which had then turned into an unfortunate sparring session, and plenty of fumbles at hand-to-hand combat were had by those who _hadn't_ planed on getting all sweaty and gross that day.

 

Gladio's voice was gruff as he wiped the sweat off his face with a towel, “You two've got a long way to go,” he commented on their progress.

  
“On hand-to-hand? Why would I even need it? I can just-- whoosh-- and there's a sword. Kinda more useful,” Noctis quipped, mimicking the summoning of a weapon but not actually calling upon the armigers' wares.

 

Dark eyebrows rose, Gladio's mouth set in a hard line. “And if someone disarms you? Or it's a crowded area? Or there are civilians around?”

 

“Isn't all that what you're for?” Noctis' voice was deadpan as he picked at his bangs, a tad put out that their rigorous activity had taken all the volume from them that he so meticulously worked for. Now they were back to obscuring his eyes, fringes of an indistinguishable hue ever in his peripheral vision.

 

Sensing that the tension between the two could easily put them _back_ in the ring, Prompto chose the exact moment that Gladio opened his mouth to speak up, “Man, all that fighting really made me hungry.” Food was a safe topic, wasn't it? And besides, weren't people supposed to eat something after working out? Or was it before-- Huh. Well, if anyone knew, it'd probably be Gladio, and the guy would totally say something about it.

 

Before Prompto's thoughts could be answered, Noctis piped up, “Let's get a pizza. Specs is in meetings and stuff all day, so we could order one in.” It was absolutely sound logic, and Noctis didn't exactly have to worry about where the money for said pizza would come from. It was one of many princely perks. (Said perks did not come with a 'sleeping in' option, which should have been the first upon the list, but alas such a luxury was not to be had by the astrals' chew toy.)

 

“We could make a pizza, here,” Gladio said before Prompto could ask just _where_ Noctis wanted to order his pizza from; there was a cute little shop a few blocks from the blonde's house that would put extra spicy peppers on the pie if one asked nicely, and it was always amusing to see if anyone else could handle that amount of heat.

 

“Do you have the stuff to make a pizza?” Noctis asked, his own eyebrows raising to meet his hairline; he knew Gladio had an unhealthy obsession with Cup Noodles and the thought of pizza toppings upon a freeze dried noodle puck sounded decidedly unappetizing.

 

“Hm.” Gladio made a non-committal noise, low in his throat, and rested the towel over his shoulders, leading the trio to the kitchen. “Probably. Let's find out.” The man was no Ignis, but he fared well enough in feeding himself and Iris, so feeding two more shouldn't have been a problem.

 

While Gladio rifled through the fridge, pulling out unmarked container after unmarked container, Prompto glanced to Noctis. If Noctis thought Gladio's cooking was worth it, then he wouldn't worry-- besides, it couldn't be much worse than that week he'd had to live off of the bargain dried noodles and whatever the produce section had severely marked down at night. Incidentally, a bruised apple made for a _perfect_ baked apple, though he'd keep that recipe of soda-and-fruit far, far, faaaaaar away from Ignis.

 

Noctis met Prompto's eyes, but said nothing. Instead, he gave a slight nod of acknowledgment, then tilted his head towards Gladio in a silent command; _Watch him_ , it said, and so Prompto did, though it wasn't quite as fascinating as it should have been.

 

After what seemed like an eternity, Gladio spoke once more. “I've got cream cheese to use instead of the ricotta.” He sounded quite confident in himself, as if this were a normal way to combine food together, and so it took a moment for what he said to sink in.

 

“You've got what?” Noctis was the one to speak up, sounding quite affronted.

 

“Cream Cheese,” Gladio readily supplied, hoisting the plastic tub of the creamy white stuff in his hand as if to make a point.

 

“On... Pizza?” Prompto hedged, speaking up. He didn't sound quite convinced by the assertion, and his eyebrows narrowed together as if he were trying to piece together some very serious food math where he'd been left behind without the equation.

 

“Yeah,” Gladio reiterated. “Instead of ricotta, 'cause I don't have any.”

 

“I'd like real cheese on my pizza,” Noctis had no problem speaking up, while Prompto was still trying to find the polite way to say exactly that.

 

“I miiiiiight have some mozzarella in here,” Gladio drew out the word 'might' into nearly three syllables, not instilling any faith into the other two as he shifted some more stuff around in the fridge. “Huh. Nope. Looks like Iris probably ate it.”

 

Noctis and Prompto shared _a look_ , violet-blue eyes staring into storm-blue, the shared thought of _Ifrit's dirty gym socks, hell no,_ nearly tangible between them. Thankfully, Gladio was illiterate to this particular form of communication, and could not pick the narrative out of thin air. Had he been able to, it might have caused a lot more tension than the thought of smearing cream cheese upon a pizza.

 

“So we're ordering one,” Noctis already had his phone in hand, pulling up his favourite place's menu. Junk food had been the plan of the day with Specs away and unable to force vegetables into anything and everything he ate, so he was keen on getting the most excessive, meatiest, greasiest and undignified pizza ever.

The sort of pizza that Ignis would take one look at the box for and would chew his ear off about into next Tuesday, and would probably even be spiteful enough to make him a dessert out of like, black beans, or something just as awful.

 

Noctis dialed the phone, and promptly handed it to Gladio, who complied with the ridiculous order on the Crown's dime without even a question or word of reproach; at least it wasn't Iris who had once _insisted_ that they go out for ice cream sundaes immediately after they'd sparred (and after she'd kicked Gladio's ass, and ego, into the ground.).

 

The pizza arrived, and the thought of the cream cheese travesty was shelved for the night.

 

At least, it seemed so, til hours later Noctis and Prompto found themselves in Noct's apartment, sprawled out on the couch and grinding through a dungeon in King's Knight on their phones, when Prompto suddenly jerked to the side and went a bit pale.

 

“You uh... okay there, buddy?” Noctis asked, looking over the edge of his phone. He was used to some of Prompto's more eccentric quirks, but usually they had a reason. This just... seemed quite out of place, and was super hoping the blonde wasn't going to be sick on his couch. That would be just plain gross, and Ignis would kill him for throwing out an entire couch.

 

“I just...” Prompto paused, shaking his head. “Dude. _Cream cheese pizza_. I like... can't get over it?”

 

Noctis chuckled softly, tapping the menu screen in the game so that his character wouldn't get mauled. “Yeah, it didn't sound really good to me, either.”

 

“But like... who puts cream cheese on _pizza_?”

  
“Gladio. Apparently.”

  
  
“And then you put the sauce on it, and veggies, and meat, and it's just gonna be a weird murky soup of cream-cheese coated stuff.”

  
  
“You're... really thinking about this, aren't you?”

  
  
“Cream cheese and _tomato paste_ , dude. That sounds like a rejected bagel idea from that fancy bagel place near school, not like something you'd _actually eat_.”

  
“Didn't you put chili paste on toast once?”

  
  
“That's different. You put cream cheese on bread, or tomato paste on bread, and you eat them separately. I'm not putting chili paste in cream cheese and telling people it's _pizza.”_

 

“You know you just totally died in the game, right?”

  
  
“Dude. Not important. Your _shield_ tried to _poison us_ with _cream cheese pizza_. How are you not freaking out about this?”

  
  
“Dunno what to tell you, really. It's just a pizza. That we didn't eat.”

 

“But we _could_ have.”

  
  
“And we didn't.”

  
  
“Okay but, dude. _Warm_ cream cheese. That just... That's a travesty.”

  
  
“Says the guy who puts chili paste on toast,” Noctis shrugged, nonplussed.

 

Prompto narrowed his eyes at his friend, before deciding the best course of action was to throw one of the ridiculously soft couch pillows at him. “You're not gonna drop that?”

  
  
“Not anymore than you're going to drop this weird obsession about cream cheese pizza.”

  
  
There was a moment of quiet while Prompto thought about that, before finally conceding; “...Fine. But I'm gonna tell Iggy.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> It's probably obvious what inspired this; if anyone HAS tried using cream cheese in their pizza, be so kind as to tell me in the comments if it was the best thing ever, or not quite so. And, thank you so much for reading this slice of silliness!


End file.
